


dinner plans

by simplycarryon



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Double Date, F/F, M/M, Post-Pacifist Route, fic trade! finally oh my god, further adventures in alphys remembering that she has friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6274846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycarryon/pseuds/simplycarryon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your friends suggest a double date, and actually a double date sounds like a lot of fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dinner plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sianach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sianach/gifts).



> okay so! this is my half of an art/fic trade with the amazing [Sianach](http://sianach.tumblr.com/), who has been incredibly patient while i took my own sweet time turning out this fic! they drew me [a pillow fight which you can see here](http://sianach.tumblr.com/post/137834733724/my-half-of-a-trade-with-playeronecontroller-in) and in return i bring 6k words of a disastrous double date.
> 
> no real warnings in this one, except possibly for prejudice against monsters & the general chaos and shouting and language that ensue from having undyne and papyrus and mettaton all in the same place.

Mettaton is loud.

Undyne is louder.

Papyrus is the loudest.

And all three of them are here, in your nice formerly-quiet house.

You might as well write the night off as a loss work-wise, you think, pushing your designs aside. While you are 100% okay with all of them being here, and also with all of them being around in general, Undyne is currently chasing Papyrus with your couch held over her head and the impassioned yelling (“HOLD STILL! LET ME DELIVER THE COUCH OF FRIENDSHIP!!!”) is making it somewhat difficult to concentrate on anything.

You should probably try to _stop_ them, but uh, that would require effort. And you don’t think you could stop Undyne anyway, not without physically throwing yourself between her and Papyrus, and even then you might just get couch-bashed.

So instead of throwing yourself headlong into danger, you pour yourself a soda, and you sit at the kitchen table and watch Papyrus retaliate (“YOUR COUCH OF FRIENDSHIP IS NO MATCH FOR MY RECLINER OF AFFECTION!!!”, crashing noises, screaming), and you wonder how much of your furniture, if any, is going to be intact after all of this.

At least Mettaton’s filming it for posterity, or for the inevitable insurance claim you’re going to have to make after they put your table through your front window. You’ve considered replacing everything in your house with foam replicas, but a) that’s expensive and b) Undyne can turn literally anything into a deadly weapon, so there’s not much point in trying—oh, there goes your coffee table. Nice.

“Guys, maybe don’t destroy everything I own,” you suggest, sticking your tongue in your cup to get a mouthful of soda. “As much as I appreciate the show, the furniture places around here are starting to recognize me on sight.”

Papyrus freezes, your desk held precariously over his head in a near-impossible display of control. 

Undyne, mid-swing, is slightly less lucky (or maybe more, you’re not sure what constitutes winning this battle of furniture friendship). She redirects at the last second, dropping your coffee table on Mettaton instead of on Papyrus. 

Mettaton collapses in a dramatic crash of metal, and you roll your eyes and take another sip of soda.

“Oh… oh! I feel faint! Papyrus, darling, please… carry me outside… I want to see the sky one last time before I perish!” he wheezes, his words pitted with static.

“YOU WILL NOT DIE, METTATON!! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL NOT ALLOW IT!!!” Papyrus declares. He sets your desk down with surprising care, scoops Mettaton up in his arms, and turns to you. “Dr. Alphys! Please, fix Mettaton!”

Mettaton languishes dramatically in Papyrus’s arms, draping a noodly arm across his forehead and pointing one leg directly up. “It’s too late, darling! I have breathed my last! Farewell, my dearest, and know… know that I loved you all! You have always been the brightest stars in my sky!”

He exhales loudly and stops moving.

Papyrus gasps, his eye sockets filling with—tears, you think, though you have seriously stopped trying to understand how the skeleton brothers emit any kind of bodily anything. “METTATON!! NO!!!!”

“He’s _fine,”_ Undyne insists, and she reaches for Mettaton’s chest dial. Mettaton slaps her hand away; she punches him in the face.

You sip your soda and watch the three of them continue wrecking your living room.

 

 

The nice thing about being friends with Papyrus—well one of the nice things, really, because Papyrus is pretty nice on a lot of fronts including knowing exactly when you’re most in need of encouragement and then showing up at your door to shout encouraging things—BUT the nice thing _right now_ about being friends with Papyrus is that he’s very good at organizing things.

Your trashed living room has been restored to some semblance of order, with all the component parts being put into their respective places, and—it’s nice. It’s almost like you _don’t_ have friends who are capable of trashing your entire living space in a matter of moments.

“H-hey, it looks great in here,” you tell Papyrus, and he beams proudly, like you’ve just told him he’s won the trophy for organizing and being awesome. You… should totally make him a trophy for organizing and being awesome, actually. Mental note for later. “So, um… anime night?”

You can hear Mettaton groan quietly in the background somewhere, but _you know what, jerk, we totally do what you want to do all the time—_

“I HAVE A BETTER IDEA!!” Papyrus declares, and he does it with such aggressive excitement that you almost fall over backwards. You wonder, briefly, if this is all a plot to avoid anime night (which Mettaton is _in no way obligated to attend_ but he generally shows up and complains about it anyway), but— “We should all go on a date together! A date of the doubles, as the cool kids say!!”

“Double date, darling,” Mettaton corrects, and Papyrus waves a hand.

“Yes! One of those! Where we all go out together and have a very good time!!”

You tap your claws together, considering the implications of this particular option. On one hand: you will totally miss out on cuddling on the couch with Undyne. You’ll also have to wait another week for the next anime night, and you are _this_ close to the finale of Star Power Princesses, which you have been avoiding spoilers on for _forever_ so you and the group can watch it together, which means _more waiting ughghghhhhsdfdskfj._

On the other hand: going out.

The idea of going out and doing things with people is simultaneously alluring and terrifying. You like the thought, in concept, where there are no actual people to interact with, where you can imagine grand sweeping romantic occasions where Undyne takes you dancing and you don’t trip all over your big dumb toeclaws or hit passersby with your tail, where she dips you grandly with her big strong arms and you gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes anD THEN SHE KISSES YOU—

Papyrus waves a hand in front of your face and rsdflksjdg WOW THANKS FOR THAT, BRAIN.

“Are you alright, Dr. Alphys?” he asks, and you squawk indignantly and wave him away when he leans in to make sure you’re not getting brain fried or something.

“I’m fine,” you insist, straightening your glasses. Focus, Alphys. “I just, um. Got distracted… thinking about... ……… science.”

Papyrus nods sagely. “Sans does that too.”

Huh. This does not actually surprise you, because Sans is a giant nerd, but that’s not the point here. _“Anyway,”_ you persist, trying to set the train of thought back on its rails, “a double date sounds kinda nice. Where would we go?”

“We could go fight people in the park!!” Undyne volunteers immediately.

“That’s not a date, darling.” Mettaton poses over the arm of your couch, kicking a leg up and into Undyne’s face. To her immense credit, she doesn’t slam him into the floor (the number of Undyne-caused repairs you’ve had to do on Mettaton has risen exponentially since he got legs and also became vulnerable to physical attacks), and he continues like he’s not in immediate danger of death by angry fish. “A date is romantic! Marvelous! Extraordinary! Which is why, my dears, I think we should go crash our local television studio and be on TV together!”

“That’s not a date either, calculator,” Undyne hisses, and her fist clamps around Mettaton’s proffered leg like a vise. 

You consider intervening, you really do; Mettaton is your best friend, after all, and it’s not very best-friend-like to let him get thrown into the nearest wall. But he’s also Mettaton, and, well.

Mettaton.

Thankfully, Papyrus makes the decision for you. He breaks in between the two of them, beaming like the natural-born peacemaker he is, like he’s not at risk of being thrown out the window by Undyne, who would probably throw anyone out the window at this point. “I have a better idea!!” he declares brightly. “Let’s all go out to eat!! Frisk says that is what people do on double dates, and I think food sounds like a wonderful and not-dangerous-to-anyone-else idea!!”

“Food sounds good,” you agree quickly, before the other two come to blows.

“So the only matter is where!” Papyrus brandishes a sheet of paper. “Since I am very awesome and good at thinking ahead, I made a list of lots of good restaurants!! Mettaton doesn’t eat, but most of these places have outlets available for charging, and all of them offer vegetarian options!!”

“Vegetarian? I can understand that for you and Undyne, darling, but I thought Alphys was pescetarian.” 

“Pescetarian?” Papyrus asks, raising a nonexistent eyebrow.

Mettaton grins, sharp and amused. “She eats fish.”

It takes you a couple seconds to connect the dots, at which point you’re reasonably sure your face is brilliantly red.

 _“You shut your big dumb robot mouth,”_ you tell him, as intensely as you can muster while still feeling like you’re going to burst into flames at any moment, and when he laughs you bury your face in your hands. You’re pretty sure Undyne is snickering, too, which really just makes it worse.

(You pretend with fervent ardor you don’t see her offer Mettaton a high-five. Your only consolation is that her high-five slams him backwards into the wall behind him.) 

“I don’t get the joke, but okay!” Papyrus declares. “We can look for restaurants that serve fish, too—“

“VEGETARIAN IS FINE,” comes out much louder than you intended, and you grab the list from him as the sound of metallic laughter intensifies.

You hide behind the paper, pretending to be absolutely enthralled with the text (all-caps handwriting and stars in perfectly neat lines, except for one lowercase scrawled addition at the bottom that just says _grillby’s_ ).

(Actually, Grillby’s sounds amazing, but that’s not really an option any more even if your mouth waters at the thought of a crisp-greasy burger and fries so salty they make your tongue crinkle.)

“I’ve listed them in order of how many stars they had on review sites,” Papyrus says helpfully, leaning in over your shoulder to point at the first few. “After all, what better way to tell if a place is good than by scathing peer review?”

“This is… really comprehensive,” you reply, after a minute of examining his work. Stars are painstakingly drawn in the margins, and—he’s even applied glittery star stickers, apparently to indicate a really good review. You hover over one such glittery star with one claw. “How about this place? If it earns a sticker, it can’t be bad, right?”

“As long as it serves food, I don’t really care,” Undyne says, lazing on your couch. She hoists Mettaton over her head, bench-pressing him like he weighs nothing, and you definitely do not stare at the fluid movement of her arms as she lifts a several-hundred-pound robot repeatedly.

Mettaton, ever himself, kicks a leg out as she lifts.

“Sparkly star sticker it is.” You feel proud for making a decision, even assisted by Papyrus’s research as it has been.

 

 

Dinner at a reasonably fancy place means reasonably fancy dress, so Papyrus and Undyne split off to go get reasonably fancily dressed. Mettaton, in a state of constant fancy, stays with you. You are 100000% sure he’s here to make sure you don’t show up to your double date in a lab coat, but joke’s on him, you actually have a nice dress. It has polka dots, you picked it out yourself, it’s one of those things you’re somewhat proud of even if you never wear it for any occasion whatsoever because lab coats are more comfortable shut up.

You put it on, though, and you play with the soft fabric, pinching it between your fingers. The dots provide a series of tiny raised bumps for you to worry with your claws, something to distract your brain from the fact that you’re way out of your element with this whole dressing nicely thing.

When you emerge from your room, you hold your arms out and twirl slightly so that Mettaton can ~~judge you like the fucking diva he is~~ evaluate your costume change, which—is really just the dress, whatever, you don’t have fancy shoes because you don’t generally wear shoes, and you can forget about ever finding jewelry that you can stand wearing. But it’s a change. It’s not a lab coat.

“Well,” Mettaton says, drawing the one syllable out, and you think about hitting him with your tail, “I suppose that will do, darling, but it’s a bit drab. You wouldn’t happen to have anything in a nice warm red?”

That smarts, just a little, and you blink a couple of times until your eyes stop being stupid and watery. “No, dipstick, this is the only nice thing I have,” you inform him, more waspish than you mean to, and he immediately looks apologetic.

“I—that’s not to say that it doesn’t suit you quite well, my dear,” he adds quickly, “only that it would not be my very first choice, but—“

“I get it, I get it. Not enough glitter and glamor.” Nothing ever has enough glitter and glamor for Mettaton, who had you install a glitter cannon in one arm for that exact reason, but you get the sinking feeling that you’ve disappointed him somehow and that’s kind of the worst feeling in the world.

When you look up, it’s into the barrel of said glitter cannon, and you squawk awkwardly and jump out of the way. “What the fuck, Mettaton?”

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m just fixing your lack of glitter. This won’t hurt at all.” He takes aim again, rotating his torso while keeping his feet planted (why did you give him so many goddamn swivel points WHAT WAS THE POINT OF LETTING HIM DO THAT), and you dive out of his sights and slap the switch on his back with more force than is absolutely necessary.

When the smoke clears, Mettaton displays a very emphatic >:( on his facial pixels.

“That wasn’t very nice, dear one,” he says, though he just sounds amused. (You know he’s not offended, because he goes full-on autotune when he’s offended. It’s hilarious and you have to try really hard not to laugh most of the time.)

“Neither was trying to shoot me,” you begin, but he pops one hand off anyway and fires an _inordinate_ amount of shiny confetti into the air over you both.

 

 

 

Papyrus and Undyne return at 7:00 sharp, which is perfect, because you’re still picking fucking confetti out of places you didn’t think would ever have confetti in them. It’s amazing how tiny bits of shiny paper get wedged between scales and OH GOD WHY.

“You both look incredible!!” Papyrus says when you join them outside, and you know he means it, because _Papyrus._ “Dr. Alphys, your dress is very nice! And Mettaton, you’re so rectangular!”

“Nobody rocks the rectangle like I do, darling,” Mettaton says, firing another aggressively cheerful burst of confetti over the four of you. You briefly consider shoving a wad of gum in his confetti tank, but before you can do anything, Undyne distracts you with a cheek smooch.

“You look great, babe,” she says, and for one shining moment everything is perfect, and then you open your mouth.

“I-I-I—“ FUCK, “Th-thank you! S-so do y-you!” You clamp your hands over your mouth before any more flustered stammering noises can fall out of your face.

Undyne grins and slaps you on the back, nearly bowling you over. “So! Good news and bad news! Good news is, we have a car and dinner reservations! Bad news: we have a car with two seats, and reservations in half an hour! So we’re gonna pile in like sardines, and we’re gonna love it!!”

“At first I thought Mettaton could sit on my lap, but then I realized that he would probably block my view of the road,” Papyrus says, sizing Mettaton up with a thoughtful look. 

“But you’re so _good_ at driving, darling.” Mettaton isn’t quite as good at flirty body language in his rectangle form, but hell if he’s going to let that stop him. “Surely I wouldn’t be _that_ hard to see past.”

“We could put you in the trunk!!” Undyne volunteers. “You don’t even need air holes!!!”

“Or, consider: no.”

“We could tie you to the front bumper and use you like a cowcatcher!!!”

“How about we tie YOU to the front bumper and see how you like it—“

You don’t deliberately trip Mettaton, you just… accidentally stick your foot in front of his wheel as he advances on Undyne, and the fact that he falls flat on his face is definitely not your fault in any way.

 

 

Eventually, the decision is made to let Mettaton pose on the _back_ of the car, with a few bungee cords for a pseudo-seatbelt instead of trying to hook him into Papyrus’s belt somehow. Papyrus argues the seatbelt thing passionately, because everyone needs a seatbelt, that is BASIC CAR SAFETY, but you remind him that Mettaton is invincible to physical attacks in this form and it would take nothing short of dropping him into the CORE to do any damage to his body. The cords are a compromise of sorts, because they’ll do absolutely nothing in an emergency or potential crash, but at least Papyrus feels better about having them there.

You settle yourself awkwardly on Undyne’s lap, glad that Papyrus is taking up the responsibility of driving. You could, if you wanted to, but you really don’t want to; driving in city spaces makes you anxious beyond belief, and anyway, driving sucks when cars aren’t made for people with large tails to worry about. 

(Not that the current situation is really any better, thanks giant tail that has nowhere to go when you’re perched on someone else’s lap. AWKWARD.)

So, Papyrus drives, even though that’s weird. He’s like a baby, or at least the baby of your group? Maybe? He’s younger, you think. Less… mature, more Papyrus. But he’s the only one of the other three who has his license, which means that he drives, and he’s surprisingly good at it.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t surprise you that Papyrus follows the rules of the road to a T (minus the whole four people in two seats thing). Papyrus is all about control, about watching other people and adjusting for them, and he drives like he’s been doing it all his life. (Maybe he has. He’s had that racecar bed for as long as you’ve known him.)

Undyne, of course, is not allowed to drive. Or get a license. Or do anything even remotely resembling operating a moving vehicle. The last time she was allowed to drive a golf cart, she managed to ramp it off a house and hit 200 miles an hour before crashing it into a low-flying plane. 

(You’ve long since stopped asking how this series of events was ever possible.)

So: Undyne. Not allowed to drive. Not even allowed to assist Papyrus in driving, not that Papyrus needs help, but that doesn’t stop her from yelling at people who drive even slightly slower than the speed limit.

“HIT THE GAS OR MOVE YOUR ASS!!” she bellows, leaning a lot farther out of the car than you’re comfortable with. At least there are no spears involved at the moment, but you doubt that will last long.

“They could certainly stand to drive a little faster, but I can’t blame them for being so distracted by my extraordinary driving,” Papyrus says brightly, pulling her back into her seat with one hand. “I bet they’ve never seen braking skills of this caliber!!”

“You might be the best driver ever, Papyrus,” Undyne says with a grin, reaching over and scrubbing her knuckles across his skull in what might be a noogie if he wasn’t in the process of driving. “But y’know, it’d be even better if we put some rockets on this baby. I bet Alphys could whip some up out of an egg beater and some soda.”

“I mean, I built a jetpack into a phone,” you begin, before realizing what making rockets for Undyne means. “But uh, no. Bad idea. We’d probably end up in space.”

“Oh, yeah.” Undyne sounds thoughtful for maybe half a second, then— “That would SUUUUUUCK!!!”

 

 

Papyrus can, of course, parallel park like a pro. This does not surprise you in any way, because you’re not sure there’s anything that Papyrus is genuinely bad at when he puts his mind to it, but the way he glides effortlessly into the parking space makes you embarrassed to look back at your own past attempts at doing the same thing. He makes it look so easy, but you know from personal experience that PARALLEL PARKING CAN GO FUCK ITSELF.

“DON’T GET OUT YET!!!” Undyne shouts like you’re a mile away instead of approximately two inches (ow), and she picks you up bodily and squeezes out from under you, dumping you unceremoniously into the seat as she flings herself over the side of the car and onto the sidewalk.

She then proceeds to open the car door for you with an enormous showy flourish, even offering you a hand as you start to step out of the car. You take it, gently, and let her guide you (this is a dream _this has to be a dream nothing ever works out this well what the fuck_ ) and release your hand once you’re safely on the sidewalk.

Papyrus vaults over the driver’s side door (you’re going to teach everyone here how to use doors holy shit) and helps Mettaton off the back of the car, which would probably have been more anime-boyfriend-esque if Mettaton wasn’t currently a wheely rectangle, but oh well.

They make a funny picture together—Papyrus with basketballs (?????) glued to his shoulders and C00L DUDE plastered across his chest, Mettaton with his noodly dryer duct arms and one wheel. It’s good, though. You’re a little surprised at just how well a gangly skeleton and an animated microwave fit each other, but whatever, you ship them like FedEx.

“Shall we begin our—“ Papyrus whips a book out from under his hat and consults it—“Double date?” He seems inordinately pleased to have gotten the term right this time. “Allow me to lead you to the very fine establishment where I have called and acquired reservations!!”

Papyrus leads the way, jauntily; Mettaton wheels after him, bumping grandly over the cracks in the sidewalk and occasionally posing for passersby, and you and Undyne trail slightly behind. Part of you is absolutely positively sure that you’re doing something wrong, because if dating sims have taught you anything it’s that gifts and petting are the ways that one raises affection, and you don’t have any gifts and you are _terrified_ at the thought of petting Undyne’s face like she’s Mew Mew, she is infinitely more awesome and cool than a human girl with cat ears, and—

No, you remind yourself. No, this is Real Life, Not A Dating Sim. As puzzled as you are that this is a thing that is happening, you’re dating a very attractive fish lady, For Real, and your relationship is based on trust and affection and conversation and mutual attraction, not on how many days in a row you’ve given her a gift. Even if that would be a super easy and much less stressful way to do this whole dating thing.

You do hold hands, though. She grins down at you, her teeth perilously beautifully sharp, and you smile up at her and you try not to burst into embarrassed flames.

The restaurant is a nice place on the corner—high glass windows, fancy lettering, is that red carpet?? holy fuck—and Papyrus holds the door open and ushers all of you through it proudly. You don’t feel fancy enough to be standing in this place, even as dressed up as you are; your polka-dot dress feels dumpy, and you’re keenly aware of the fact that everyone is staring. But the other three don’t seem to notice—they’re comfortable in their own skins, or distinct lack thereof—and you shrug a tiny mental shrug and just don’t say anything, because who are you to ruin the moment with your monumental insecurities.

The host looks the four of you up and down, and his face crinkles in what you think is disgust. You’ve had plenty of practice with human faces, but mostly through the less-than-accurate medium of anime, which, while entertaining, has done almost nothing to prepare you for what emotions actually look like on actual human faces.

All that said, though, you’re 99% sure that’s disgust, and he sort of stares you down until you look away and curl your tail around your legs in embarrassment.

“We have a reservation for four,” Papyrus says, swooping in between the two of you, ready to defuse any potential situations with his very being. “I called a few hours ago. They should be under The Great Papyrus. Which is me!!”

“Uh huh,” the host says, looking down at the book in front of him; he runs a finger down the list, making a show of actually searching, and then looks back up. “Sorry, can’t find you on here.”

“Hm,” says Papyrus, leaning over the host’s stand to read the entries upside-down. “Ah, it seems you are mistaken! My name is right there. Such a small mistake is perfectly understandable, I’m sure you’ve had a very long day, and—“

The host scratches out Papyrus’s reservation with several long, heavy lines.

“Sorry,” he says again, nonchalant, “can’t find you on here.”

“But my name is there, even if you crossed it out—“

“Maybe you can’t take a hint, buddy. You aren’t on the list.”

Papyrus flounders, his jaw working without any sounds coming out—a feat in and of itself. “But I—we—I called ahead—we had reservations—my name is right there—“

“We don’t serve _your kind_ here,” and this time the host’s tone says that he considers you and yours to be a shitty ripoff anime at the bottom of the bargain bin of life. “Don’t you monsters have creepy spider restaurants to go to or something? Get out of my restaurant.”

Now, normally, this is an issue you’d let slide. You know better than most that humans still have to get used to monsters being around; there’s bound to be some animosity, some fear, some—whatever this is. You can deal with it, even if it’s shitty, because people are working to change it, and maybe someday it won’t be like this.

(Plus, confrontation sucks.)

But Papyrus looks like he might cry, and you can be brave for him if not for yourself.

“I-I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” you inform the host, pushing past Papyrus. “Consumer transactions a-are protected under anti-discrimination laws, and we are here to consume.”

“You could lay off the consuming a little, tubby,” the host says, leaning so close into your personal bubble that you almost miss the insult. “We only sell real food here, anyways. No bugs or souls or—whatever the hell else you weirdos eat.”

“I—we—I eat real, actual food, you-you-you _fuck,”_ you snap back at him, but the hot tears in your eyes make it difficult for you to pretend that he’s not getting to you. You know it, and he knows it, and the twinge of anxious nerves in your stomach twists into something heavy and stabby, and you fold. You step back, eyes locked on the floor, and you feel dumpy and pointless and you can’t even stop some jerk from making Papyrus feel bad. “L-let’s just go, guys.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Undyne says, and you realize too late that she has drawn an actual weapon; a spear crackles jagged and angry in one hand. “Listen here, you little shithead, if you think you can insult my girlfriend and my best friend and get away with it—“

“Undyne, let’s not fight,” Papyrus begins, floundering; he knows as well as you do that this is Bad, that Attacking Humans Makes Monsters Look Terrible, even if you take a tiny amount of joy in the host’s frightened expression. “Come on, we—we can just go somewhere else! We can get ice cream!! Or greasy food!!! There are lots of other places that don’t involve punching someone in the face!!!”

“We could bring this whole place down,” Mettaton says, as Papyrus tries to wrestle Undyne back with little success. “I have explosives and lasers. I don’t see why we couldn’t just reduce this horrible restaurant to ash.”

“OR—or we could just leave,” you suggest, and Papyrus nods frantically, but Mettaton and Undyne are having none of your pacifist options.

“Captain Undyne,” Mettaton says, addressing her with a flourish you don’t think he’s ever given her before, “would you mind flipping my switch?”

“No, come on, leave the switch alone, let’s just—“

Undyne reaches over, despite Papyrus’s attempts at interference, and flicks the switch labeled “SWITCH.”

The resulting explosion of glitter and compressed air gives Mettaton a moment to pose, true bishounen-style, before slamming a long leg onto the host’s podium. 

The host, with three spears hovering over his head and an actual non-glitter arm cannon threatening his continued existence, is somewhere between terrified and pissing himself.

Part of you wants desperately to get out, to escape the horrified stares of the other restaurant patrons, and then the inevitable law enforcement and then the disappointed looks from Asgore and Frisk and everyone else involved in the movement for peace, but—you can’t. Not without your friends, who look like they might very well tear the entire restaurant apart brick by brick. And if they do that, they’ll get in Trouble, not just getting scolded or frowned at but Actual Real Trouble with the police and the government and they’ll probably have to go to jail or _worse_ and—

“ENOUGH!!!” you scream, and—everything stops, but you’re too angry and stressed and _completely done with the events of the night_ to give a flying fuck about who’s staring at you any more.

You storm up to the podium, and you shoot the terrified host your very best glare over your glasses, with as much predator-dinosaur as you can manage thrown in.

And then, before you can think about what you’re about to do, you pick Undyne up and hoist her over your head.

Undyne, understandably, lets out a noise somewhere between a yell and a squawk of surprise.

“Bring Mettaton,” you tell Papyrus, and he overcomes his slack-jawed expression with an admirable amount of speed and scoops Mettaton into a bridal carry. “We’re getting out of here before someone does something incredibly stupid.”

You storm down the fancy red carpet through the fancy glass door and out into the street, and it isn’t until you’re out at the car that it sinks in just how heavy Undyne is. And then everything sort of gets tired at once; your arms and legs wobble, your knees threaten to give out, and you all but drop her into the passenger seat before you collapse, exhausted.

There’s a moment of stunned silence, in which you vaguely wonder exactly how many relationship boundaries you’ve overstepped (and whether you can reasonably argue that she threw you into a trashcan on your first date so it’s only fucking fair), and then Undyne screeches.

“Holy _shit,_ Alphys! That was amazing! I didn’t know you could—I thought you were—oh my god!! I have the most badass nerdy girlfriend EVER!!!!!”

You say nothing, because everything hurts, and you let her pick you up and pull you into her lap, and everything blurs into exhaustion but at least it’s a semblance of okay again.

 

 

Undyne orders Papyrus to “DRIVE LIKE THE COPS ARE AFTER US!!!!” which apparently means “drive the speed limit and use your turn signal liberally,” and this is good because despite Undyne and Mettaton egging him on to drive faster and with more flourish, Papyrus sticks to the rules that are going to net you a clean getaway in the end.

When you stop, it’s—wonder of blessed wonders—at your place instead of at another dinner option. You could stand to collapse into bed and never get up again, and you almost wave off the other three and send them home except that Mettaton and Papyrus volunteer to bring you ice cream and ice cream sounds amazing.

So you collapse onto the couch instead, and Undyne sits next to you and rests her chin on the top of your head for a moment.

“That was awesome,” she says, still sounding incredibly pleased with you.

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? Why would I be mad? You stopped me and toasterface from doing something we would’ve regretted, and you freakin’ _carried_ me, I mean, holy fuck! Things I did not expect you to do, ever. Have you been holding out on me this whole time?”

“It was mostly adrenaline,” you admit, nestling a little closer. “I don’t think I could do it again, not even if you asked really nicely.”

“You’re gonna be hella sore tomorrow,” Undyne reminds you, and you can hear her grinning. “Maybe me and Papyrus will come by and keep you company. We can be your muscles for the day, since all of yours are gonna be too sore to move.”

You groan. You’re already considering never using your arms again, and maybe also your legs, since they’re about as dead weight as your arms feel.

The only reason you even _consider_ moving from your nice comfortable spot cuddled up with Undyne is because Papyrus and Mettaton return with four bowls—cookie dough ice cream for you, strawberry for Papyrus, a stack of batteries for Mettaton, and a microwaved puddle that was once ice cream for Undyne.

“Scoot over, darling,” Mettaton says, wedging himself into the space between you and the armrest. He gives off the dry mechanical warmth of an active computer, a striking difference from Undyne’s cool skin on your other side, and you’re very glad that these are both your very good friends because you don’t think you’d put up with this much physical contact from anyone else.

Papyrus settles into the spot on Undyne’s other side. “So! That was quite an adventure-date!!” he says brightly, digging into his bowl of ice cream with skeletal gusto. “We should do that again sometime!”

“Maybe without the—” you flap a hand tiredly, looking for the words, “the prejudice and the yelling and the carrying and everything. Maybe let’s just have a nice dinner next time, at a place that isn’t going to throw us out for being us.”

“Me and Pap will personally vet every damn restaurant within a hundred miles if we have to,” Undyne volunteers through a mouthful of ice cream soup, and Papyrus nods sagely. “We’ll find the perfect place. Maybe we’ll even buy Grillby a place and make him make us burgers!!”

“That sounds like an awful lot of work for a burger,” you inform her, letting your head tip sideways until it rests against her arm. You can feel her go still, like even the thought of jostling you is out of the question, and you smile a tiny bit.

“Hey, whatever it takes to make things perfect.” Undyne leans against you, just a little bit, like a no-armed hug. Papyrus loops an arm in behind the two of you, and Mettaton slings an arm all the way down the couch, pulling all four of you into something between a hug and a cuddle. 

You’re okay with this. You’re okay with just this, just—sitting on the couch together, eating ice cream and hanging out. You don’t need fancy dinners or fancy clothes, because you have these nerds, and you love them more than you can conceivably ever say.

This right here? 

This is perfect.


End file.
